Nigeria: Kaduna ginger farmers count losses as disease ravages crop, ruins livelihood

Published 2024년 5월 23일

Tridge summary

A fungal disease has devastated ginger crops in southern Kaduna, Nigeria, affecting about 2,500 hectares of farms and leading to the loss of crops worth hundreds of millions of naira. The epidemic, which has severely impacted farmers and the local economy, has resulted in the decline of ginger production and an increase in charcoal production. The farmers have urged the government to provide them with seeds and agricultural inputs for the next planting season. The Kaduna State government has distributed fungicides to the affected farmers and is educating them on crop rotation. The government is also establishing a Quality Control and Disease Surveillance unit to monitor disease outbreaks and maintain and improve crop quality.

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Original content

On a sunny morning last August, Jatau Malichy, 65, left his home in Mafo-fadia, a village in Kachia Local Government Area in the southern part of Kaduna State, north-west Nigeria, to inspect his farm. After retiring as a librarian with the state government, Mr Malichy devoted himself to cultivating ginger on the five-hectare farm. But what he noticed of the crops that day left him bewildered and heartbroken. The crops were wilting. Over a few weeks from July, a ‘strange disease’ gradually devastated the crops. Mr Malichy’s 58-year-old widow, Bathsheba, believes the shock over the loss of his crops led to his death a few days later on 7 August. The community had practised ginger farming for as long as Mrs Malichy could remember. She and her husband used proceeds from their farm to build their house in the village in 2019. “Our plan was that after that 2023 harvest, we would not farm again. So we doubled what we normally planted, hoping for more proceeds,” she told this reporter at ...

Source: Premiumtimesng